Drlee wrote:An extremely expensive road system is required in the absence of public transportation such as rail. This cost is directly subsidizing the cost of fossil fuel from the public coffers.

Urban sprawl is enabled by private cars and truck transport. This exacerbates our reliance on fossil fuel and subsidizes the industry as we build, at public expense, the infrastructure to support this.

The part I find amazing is when a city will destroy local residences and businesses in order to build a big ugly road. It loses revenue from property tax, makes no revenue from the road it now has to maintain and makes no money from the people who can now live outside the city limits. Talk about self-sabotage.

That which can be asserted without evidence; can be dismissed without evidence- Christopher Hitchens

Rapperson wrote:I'd like to say I'm blessed, but yes, I did notice you have an extraordinarily uncool picture, and yes you can choose them.

What puts you in a position to judge if the boat doesn't float? A major part of science is determining if the science work is actually well founded. You'd have to be well versed in the theory to make that judgment, which I'm guessing you're not - and if the science doesn't hold up then a large swathe, certainly the top tier of the profession knows this, which would equate to wholesale fraud.

I think an understanding of how science works is sufficient to cast doubt on bold claims about mankind's influence on our climate. Simply put, the amount of evidence available is miniscule in proportion to the amount needed to draw firm conclusions.

In an ideal world (or worlds) you would have 2 planets with everything else held equal except human carbon emissions and then measure the variation in climate, and the consequences of this. Every step away from that ideal experiment means making assumptions and estimates which weaken the findings.

You don't need to be a climatologist to see that we are very far indeed from that ideal experiment.

That is not to say that climate change isn't happening or that there's no link to human activity. However it is a factor in considering the risks posed by climate change and formulating an appropriate response.

IMO our response seems disproportionate to the likelihood that we are causing climate change and to the consequences of climate change if it turns out that we are.

The response is big money for government and certain sectors of the economy so there's an obvious motive for ensuring that the MMCC hypothesis is widely accepted. Politicians and businesses involved can channel funds accordingly so it becomes self perpetuating.

That isn't the same as saying the entire scientific community is involved in an elaborate fraud. Just that people follow their own self-interest and take advantage of information asymmetries.

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AJS wrote:I think an understanding of how science works is sufficient to cast doubt on bold claims about mankind's influence on our climate. Simply put, the amount of evidence available is miniscule in proportion to the amount needed to draw firm conclusions.

In an ideal world (or worlds) you would have 2 planets with everything else held equal except human carbon emissions and then measure the variation in climate, and the consequences of this. Every step away from that ideal experiment means making assumptions and estimates which weaken the findings.

You don't need to be a climatologist to see that we are very far indeed from that ideal experiment.

Doesn't think mainstream science on climate change is warranted but has strong opinions about another field of inquiry where "ideal experiments" are not generally possible (economics).

The Immortal Goon wrote:You may not believe in science, but science believes in you.

Does it? I highly doubt sciences sees me as an independent sentient being. Rather they see me a random combination of matter, at best a collection of cells working in concert with no over arching point, other then survival.

I believe Science is a powerful tool to destroy humanity, if not our planet and beyond. Science main drive is to strip any meaning left in this Universe .

Globally, subsidies to fossil fuels may be on the order of US$ 600 billion per year, of which the GSI estimates about US$ 100 billion is provided to producers. Nobody knows the real number, however, because there is no international framework for regularly monitoring fossil-fuel subsidies. In the "Fossil Fuels - At What Cost?" series, the GSI works to improve subsidy estimates by undertaking detailed country surveys of these subsidies for producers. Studies to date include Canada, Indonesia, Norway and Russia.

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AJS wrote:I think an understanding of how science works is sufficient to cast doubt on bold claims about mankind's influence on our climate. Simply put, the amount of evidence available is miniscule in proportion to the amount needed to draw firm conclusions.

...

That isn't the same as saying the entire scientific community is involved in an elaborate fraud. Just that people follow their own self-interest and take advantage of information asymmetries.

The part I find amazing is when a city will destroy local residences and businesses in order to build a big ugly road. It loses revenue from property tax, makes no revenue from the road it now has to maintain and makes no money from the people who can now live outside the city limits. Talk about self-sabotage.

Quite right. It makes sense when you consider that the folks approving the nonsense are doing so in the service of the people paid to do it. Money in politics. Sad. Very sad.

We live in a time when "Stop shooting our Kids" is considered a liberal talking point.

Ronald Reagan was surrounded by armed Secret Service agents when he was shot. Perhaps if there had been an armed math teacher.....

Drlee wrote:That depends. If the dam was built by taxpayer money then yes. The cost of the dam and transmission infrastructure is a hidden cost of the electric car. It would also need roads. In this example there is no difference between gas, electric or wind powered cars.

It's about the roads. Is the cost of building and maintaining roads a subsidy on electric cars?

I'll answer it for you.

No it isn't. It doesn't make hydropower more competitive in comparison to other energy sources that could power a car, therefore it's not a subsidy. Same goes for petrol powered cars. Roadbuilding is NOT a subsidy on the fuel, for the same reason.

AJS wrote:I think an understanding of how science works is sufficient to cast doubt on bold claims about mankind's influence on our climate. Simply put, the amount of evidence available is miniscule in proportion to the amount needed to draw firm conclusions.

In an ideal world (or worlds) you would have 2 planets with everything else held equal except human carbon emissions and then measure the variation in climate, and the consequences of this. Every step away from that ideal experiment means making assumptions and estimates which weaken the findings.

You don't need to be a climatologist to see that we are very far indeed from that ideal experiment.

That is not to say that climate change isn't happening or that there's no link to human activity. However it is a factor in considering the risks posed by climate change and formulating an appropriate response.

IMO our response seems disproportionate to the likelihood that we are causing climate change and to the consequences of climate change if it turns out that we are.

The response is big money for government and certain sectors of the economy so there's an obvious motive for ensuring that the MMCC hypothesis is widely accepted. Politicians and businesses involved can channel funds accordingly so it becomes self perpetuating.

That isn't the same as saying the entire scientific community is involved in an elaborate fraud. Just that people follow their own self-interest and take advantage of information asymmetries.

The sentences in bold are false IMO; you need to be pretty much an expert in the field to make these judgements in any meaningful way. Saying something is far from something else is not meaningful. You'd have to quantify it in a sensible way, and that is beyond your capabilities unless I'm much mistaken (and mine for that matter).

I do agree the response to global warming is looking more and more inappropriate, for the reason alone that it isn't having even nearly the desired effect, i.e. emissions are not being reduced.

Yes I know what climate models are and I know the statistical/mathematical tools used for those models. I also know te limitations of such models in definitively establishing causal relationships or accurately predicting future changes in complex systems.

Any such model is only as good as the assumptions underpinning it and the information fed into it.

In the field of economics no models yet developed have accurately and consistently predicted share price movements, currency fluctuations, GDP growth or commodity prices. Even on a quarterly basis, let alone decades hence. And people have been trying to predict these things for centuries, and putting their own money on those predictions.

The climate of the planet is far more complex and unpredictable than any of these things. Even long range weather forecasts are fairly hit and miss.

At best these models provide and educated guess at what might happen.

@Rapperson

As above, in depth knowledge of climate science will help with formulating well founded assumptions and putting the right information in, but it is still only as good as the information we have. Some striking gaps:

We have only really been measuring temperature at all for 300 years and far less than that with any accuracy. And then only in certain places. I know we have other ways of estimating the temperature changes over longer periods but they rely on further assumptions and even more partial information.

Then consider the other factors which could influence climate - the sun, natural sources of carbon and other emissions, natural cycles of warming and cooling, changes in the composition of the earth that are beyond our control.

Lastly, and this is my speculation, but look at the response. It has in many ways picked up where religion and communism left off. The rich are guilty by implication. The private and individual (especially the car) are bad, while the public and communal are good (even empty buses). A clergy of scientists, consultants and politicians hold the key to our salvation. Some big companies profit to an extraordinary degree in a subsidised market, rich land owners reap huge rewards for wind farms and governments are deemed responsible to the extent that they tax fossil fuels, which remain the driving force of economic activity and will do for decades to come.

If I strongly believed the hypothesis was correct and was in a position to do something more than spouting off on the Internet about it, then I would be pouring money into research to build safe nuclear power stations and an alternative to petrol for powering private cars, not blighting landscapes with redundant wind farms, subsidising solar panel scams and putting mass transport systems on my credit card.

Yes I know what climate models are and I know the statistical/mathematical tools used for those models. I also know te limitations of such models in definitively establishing causal relationships or accurately predicting future changes in complex systems.

Any such model is only as good as the assumptions underpinning it and the information fed into it.

In the field of economics no models yet developed have accurately and consistently predicted share price movements, currency fluctuations, GDP growth or commodity prices. Even on a quarterly basis, let alone decades hence. And people have been trying to predict these things for centuries, and putting their own money on those predictions.

The climate of the planet is far more complex and unpredictable than any of these things. Even long range weather forecasts are fairly hit and miss.

At best these models provide and educated guess at what might happen.

Are you saying that the climate models are incapable of making correct predictions?